/ˈəʊvə ðə ˈmuːn/
English idiom, informal. To be extremely happy and delighted.
Draft Not yet checked by a native English speaker.
How do people use Over the moon
?
Informal and especially British, used for big news: a new job, a baby, a win. It follows “be” or “feel” (“she’s over the moon”, “I was over the moon”), and the reason comes after “about” or “with” (“over the moon about the baby”). It’s a little worn from sports interviews, so it can sound jokey.
Over the moon
in real sentences
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I was over the moon.
Tatoeba, sentence by Nuel, CC BY 2.0 FR
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She is over the moon.
Tatoeba, sentence by Aghanim, CC BY 2.0 FR
Where does Over the moon
come from?
Phrase Finder and the Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins (cited by English Wiktionary) link it to the nursery rhyme Hey Diddle Diddle, where “the cow jumped over the moon”; the rhyme was in print by about 1760. Phrase Finder also quotes Charles Molloy’s play The Coquet (1718): “I shall jump over the Moon for Joy!” The phrase became a cliché in the 1970s, when British football managers kept saying it after wins and the magazine Private Eye started mocking them for it.
Mistakes learners make with Over the moon
Using it for small pleasures. “I’m over the moon with this sandwich” only works as a joke, because the phrase is for news that makes you want to jump.
Other English idioms like Over the moon
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?
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